Paranoia : the madness that makes history / Luigi Zoja ; translated by Jonathan Hunt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zoja, Luigi, author.

Contributor:

Hunt, Jonathan, 1951- translator.

Language:

English

Italian

Subjects (All):

Paranoia--Social aspects--History--20th century.

Paranoia.

History, Modern--20th century.

History, Modern.

Paranoid Disorders--history.

History of Medicine.

Medicine in Literature.

Political Systems--history.

Paranoia--Social aspects.

History.

Medical Subjects:

Paranoid Disorders--history.

History of Medicine.

Medicine in Literature.

Political Systems--history.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 347 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Summary:

Luigi Zoja presents an insightful analysis of the use and misuse of paranoia throughout history and in contemporary society. Zoja combines history with depth psychology, contemporary politics and tragic literature, resulting in a clear and balanced analysis presented with rare clarity. The devastating impact of paranoia on societies is explored in detail. Focusing on the contagious aspects of paranoia and its infectious, self-replicating dynamics, Zoja takes such diverse examples as Ajax and George W. Bush, Cain and the American Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin and Othello to illustrate his argument. He reconstructs the emblematic arguments that paranoia has promoted in Western history and examines how the power of the modern media and mass communication has affected how it spreads. Paranoia clearly examines how leaders lose control of their influence, how the collective unconscious acquires an autonomous life and how seductive its effects can be - more so than any political, religious or ideological discourse. This gripping study will be essential reading for depth and analytical psychologists, and academics and students of history, cultural studies, psychology, classical studies, literary studies, anthropology and sociology. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : the madness of Ajax

What is paranoia?

The beginnings : myth and history

European nationalism : from cultural renaissance to paranoia

Naive persecutors

Darkness over Europe

Freud, Keynes, and the bamboozled man

Siegfried

The granite foundation and the hour of idiocy

The man of steel and the final product

Fire that feeds fire

Further and further west

A plan for the twenty-first century?

Inconclusive thoughts

Iago's whisper.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-339) and index.

ISBN:

9781138673540

1138673544

9781138673663

1138673668

OCLC:

949750940